Page 45 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
Briar gulped deeply. “A healer is already on her way, but I think it’s too late.”
“I don’t care what you think!” I shoved his hand off me. “You don’t know anything!”
“Amy—”
The sound was as brittle as chicken bones, but I heard it and wept in relief.
“Daddy!” I flattened beside him so he could see my face.
The moonlight washed his features of all color. His wrinkled eyelids lifted partially, the midnight pools beneath gazing upon me.
“Someone’s coming to help you,” I quavered, squeezing his fragile arm, bolstering him with a smile. “Just stay with me for a little while. Everything’s going to be all right.”
More blood trickled between his colorless lips. His hand, cold as winter’s grip, twitched as he pressed it to my sweaty cheek. “Amy—” he breathed—then didn’t.
The world stopped spinning and time stood still.
“Daddy? No! No, no,no!”
Lightheaded, I rose on my knees and began hapless chest compressions, trying to rememberanyof my health teacher’s instructions for how to perform CPR. But I couldn’t think straight. Not when the one person who’d always love me, even if I ate babies for breakfast and puppies for dessert, was leaving my life before his time.
The tapestry of fate unraveled around me. This wasn’t fucking supposed to happen! Daddy wasn’t supposed to die! Not then. Not like that.
“Give him back!”I shrieked at the All Mother. “Danu,give himback!”
But my prayers went unanswered, and I lost so much more than my father in that wretched moment when Briar pried me off Daddy and tried to hug me.
I broke into wracking sobs and fell out of Briar’s arms to the floor. I squeezed Daddy until his body lost its warmth.
Briar remained, rubbing my back. I wished he’d leave me alone, but I lacked the fortitude to ask him to go. My heart had just been gutted, its contents spilling across the floor.
“You’ll be okay,” Briar promised.
But I knew. As deeply as I knew my own heart, I knew nothing would ever be okay again.
Notanhourlater,Novus died from his injuries, and I didn’t even struggle as the darkness I’d always feared consumed me in a pitiless abyss.
Ten
Daddy’sdead;Novusisdead; Kell is dead; Fianna is missing; my home is destroyed.
These were the thoughts I awoke to on a bed in an unfamiliar place—a small, cluttered room doubling as a storage closet. A ceiling fan spun above me, cooling me. The scent of eucalyptus soothed my raw throat. But for my underwear, I was naked beneath a sheet, my wounds trussed up like Christmas presents. The pain associated with those wounds had mostly faded. Either that, or I was too numb to feel it.
Beyond the door, Uncle Neel and Briar waged a war of words. After what I’d endured, I didn’t care why they argued. I just wanted them to shut up. They didn’t, of course.
“Why in the Isle of Apples would you bring her home?” Uncle Neel scolded. “Didn’t you get my voicemails? I told you to take her to Loosestrife’s as soon as possible!”
“Shewanted to come, Cornelian.”
“You shouldn’t have told her!”
“I had no choice, Neel. She got a ghost call from that Kobold, warning her of the bogeybats’ attack. I did what I could to protect her, but I can only do so much when she refuses to take orders.”
My indifference burnt up in a quick flash.Who did he think he was that I’d take his orders?
“She won’t refuse once I’m done with her,” Uncle Neel growled.
“Not unless you tell her the truth! She thinks she’s an everyday woman, entitled to make her own choices. She isn’t aware how dangerous that is for her.”
